The liberal Washington Post newspaper is out with a new attack on pro-life Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. The pro-abortion newspaper claims that, because Cuccinelli supports an amendment to protect the right to life of unborn children, he must therefore oppose birth control and want to ban it as well.

SIX YEARS ago, when Virginia’s General Assembly considered the so-called “personhood amendment” to the state constitution, which granted full rights to “preborn human being[s] from the moment of fertilization,” the list of co-sponsors was short. In the state Senate, five of 40 lawmakers, all Republicans, signed on. Among them were then-Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II and Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, the current GOP candidates for governor and attorney general, respectively.

There’s a reason the amendment had relatively few sponsors, and there’s a reason it failed even in the Republican-dominated House of Delegates. Not only would the amendment have banned abortion, as the sponsors clearly intended, it also provided an opening to prohibit common methods of birth control, including the pill and intrauterine devices.

In response to questions at a retirement community in Ashburn last week, Mr. Cuccinelli insisted that government should not interfere with contraception and denied that he ever backed legislation that could do so.

The facts suggest otherwise.

The practical effects of “personhood” measures, including the one in Virginia to which Mr. Cuccinelli affixed his name, would easily include banning the most popular forms of contraception. This is because the pill, as well as other forms of birth control, work partly by preventing the implantation of eggs in the uterus wall after they have been fertilized.

But Lila Rose of Live Action tells LifeNews it’s the Washington Post that doesn’t have it’s facts in order. She points out there is a difference between drugs and devices that cause abortions and true contraception that doesn’t snuff out a human life.

Rose added: “The WaPo accuses VA gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli of opposing contraception because of his support for Personhood legislation, which protects human beings from the moment of conception. But even WaPo admits that some drugs that prevent fertilization also prevent implantation–which is after a baby has been conceived. What Cuccinelli opposes is abortion.”

“Washington Post, have integrity and report the facts. If a drug or device is designed to also kill children, it is not just contraception, it is also an abortifacient,” she concluded.